


you're like a dream come true

by blushandbooks



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Renew Anne with an E, Slow Burn, both of my babies are pining and desperate, cole is a shirbert stan, i love shirbert too much, ruby and moody are definitely THERE, this was supposed to be a 5+1 but i am getting carried away so now it's one shots i guess lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blushandbooks/pseuds/blushandbooks
Summary: If Gilbert kept being so blindly attentive towards her, Anne was going to have no choice but to let it slip that she was in love with him. He really wasn’t making it any easier for her.-One shot series College AU based off of a list of ways to say "I love you" that I found on Tumblr. Title from When We Were Young by Adele :)
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 26
Kudos: 169





	1. you're dancing around on my mind every second

**Author's Note:**

> Credits to the creators of the show. This was not beta read so don't attack me lol! 
> 
> The post: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blush-and-books/drafts/blog/secondhand-trash/620721298344214528  
> Prompt #19: Brings you up in conversations you aren't in

i. you’re dancing around on my mind every second

Cole started to feel like something was finally clicking when he talked to Anne and Gilbert, separately, on the same day.

It was a normal day at Queens, the sun was out on a surprisingly warm autumn day that Anne hadn’t been able to shut up about. Cole would later admit that it was truly lovely; as if the warm colored leaves and the bright sun had put the campus into a terminal state of “golden hour.” But what stuck out to him more than Anne’s vivid ways of declaring that she now loved fall was the person she brought up when she was done.

“God, if Gilbert were here he’d make some smartass comment about how my hair matches everything.”

Cole knew she was trying to complain about Gilbert, as she always tried to do, but the way that her red curls were twirled in her right hand as she fondly gazed at the fiery trees of the courtyard was too soft to be bitter. She even spaced out, just briefly, and Cole is convinced that she was imagining that Gilbert was walking towards them -- through the crunching leaves, with a bright smile.

She didn’t stop there, either.

“He actually loves autumn, surprisingly.” Cole’s eyebrows knotted. “I always thought he would get depressed in autumn because he knew it was leading up to winter, and the death of his father, but that’s not what happens. If anything, his spirits are renewed, and he is happy because we go back to school, and the weather is raucous and stormy, and… I don’t even know. Maybe it reminds him of the farm, too. He just loves it for some reason.”

_I’ll bet my tuition that it’s because he gets to think of you with every tree he sees,_ Cole muses to himself. He doesn’t voice this joke because he knows what Anne’s reaction will be.

Pure, ignorant denial.

Later, he’s talking to Gilbert. They are in his apartment, going over different photos they took for photography (a part of Cole’s major curriculum, an elective for Gilbert) and debating on whether or not they should go outside and get a few more shots as sunset hits. They decide that the beautiful day is too good to pass up.

“Right there,” Cole points. “Get that angle with the sun beams passing through the trees.” Gilbert crouches and follows his friend’s directions, smiling to himself while the camera clicks as the photo is taken. He stands back up, still smiling, and checking on how the picture turned out.

“Absolutely ethereal,” he mumbles.

Cole looks at him, confused.

“Come again?”

The blush that rushes to Gilbert’s face is barely noticeable, but Cole is focused enough on Gilbert to catch it.

“Absolutely ethereal,” he repeats. “Something that Anne would say if she was here. She loves nature, I mean, you know that. But she’d really love that photo. And she’d probably describe it with some long word she found in a dictionary that no one really uses anymore.” Cole smirks. Gilbert has a point.

“You’re right. She definitely would say that if she was here.” He pauses, wondering if he should poke the bear a little, and see where it takes him. What’s the harm? “Do you wish she was here?”

The brunette looks caught. But he doesn’t let it linger for long, trying to glance around the landscape in front of them and choose his words carefully. A soft chilly breeze passes through and adds a red point to his nose, ruffles his hair, and reminds Cole of why he had a crush on Gilbert for exactly one week. It reminds Cole of why Anne has had a crush on him, much more monumental than his week long curiosity, for over a year.

(Not a crush that she would admit to, though.)

“Yeah. I guess I do. She’d be a good model, don’t you think? With her hair, and the sunset, and the leaves. We couldn’t say anything about that, though. She hates it when I talk about her hair.”

“Yeah,” Cole chuckles, thinking back to that afternoon when Anne predicted that Gilbert would say something about her hair in the fall backdrop. “She’d be a great model, but she does hate when her hair is compared to… You know, sunsets, fall leaves, carrots.”

Both boys laugh more at the memory of a first year Gilbert referring to Anne as “Carrots” due to her vibrant hair color, only resulting in him getting hit over the head with a textbook. That day will never be forgotten, especially for Gilbert.

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

In silence, a few more moments pass as they take a couple more photos around the campus.

“Do you want me to text Anne and invite her to come model for us?”

Almost like a reflex, Gilbert shakes his head.

“Oh, no, she wouldn’t want to come, I don’t want to disrupt her night-”

“I doubt she’ll mind.”

“It’s fine,” Gilbert insists.

“The sunset’s almost gone anyways. We got good shots. Let’s go back.” Cole watches on as Gilbert’s shoulders sink, just a little, and he briskly turns to walk away. The blonde wonders if he will need to get involved between the two of them so that something would finally happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Peer Pressure (ft Julia Michaels) by James Bay!


	2. would it be okay if i came home to you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts #9 and #10: "Do you want me to save food for you?" and "Call me when you get home?"

ii. would it be okay if i came home to you?


If Gilbert kept being so blindly attentive towards her, Anne was going to have no choice but to let it slip that she was in love with him. He really wasn’t making it any easier for her. 

She had a job interview at 7:00 PM -- yes, later than expected, she knows -- which was the last time that the editor of the magazine could squeeze in before she was on a plane to New York for the week. Desperate to interview as quickly as possible, Anne made the appointment without realizing that her friends were making plans for a “family dinner.”

Anne needed to get this interview sooner rather than later so that she could have a source of income again (something she lost after quitting her prior job due to a stubborn coworker), and help Ruby and Diana split the month’s rent. As much as they insisted that they could cover the month together, Anne refused to let that happen.

Which is why she is sacrificing a night of eating Moody’s famous mac n’ cheese to make her best attempt to get this job at a local magazine. It is a small publication, but won’t look bad on her resume at all. 

And, after hearing all of this information, Gilbert just had to go and be a perfect goddamn gentleman and make her want to ditch the interview and stay.

“We’ll have another dinner next week so you can be there. It won’t hurt,” he tells her, sitting on her bed and watching her tie up her hair in the mirror.

The calm tone of his voice is almost enough to ease the tension in Anne’s shoulders. She just wants to bury herself in him and not let go.

“No, Gil, that’s a lot of work. It’s hard to host all 10 of us to begin with, but to have everyone cook again and bring it over is just-”

“It’s no trouble,” he insists.

“I’ll have dinner with all of you when we do it again next month. It’s okay.”

Through the reflection, she sees him contemplating what to say next to make her feel included.

“Do you want me to save you some food?” Is his choice, and Anne prays that he doesn’t see her blushing. 

With a grateful smile, she nods.

“Yes, I’d love that. Thank you.” 

He continues to watch as she gets ready, both of them exchanging a few jokes here and there about how Josie will show up with something vegan that no one will eat, or how Charlie is going to manage to screw up whatever he makes -- and finally, Anne is picking up her briefcase and her and Gilbert are walking towards the front door of her apartment.

“Good luck. She’s gonna love you,” he tells her, looking down with his emerald eyes and eyelashes longer than hers. The sentiment makes her chest hurt. “Call me when you get home?”

Unable to form full words, too distracted by how close he is and how he fills her senses, she gives him a small smile and nods with wide eyes.

At 9:06 PM, Anne walks back through her front door, expecting one of two scenarios: Either Diana and Ruby are still downstairs at the guys’ place, wine drunk and not moving until morning; or they are already getting ready for bed, still wine drunk and will definitely be sleeping in until noon the next day.

What she finds instead is a lamp on in the living room and a brunette boy curled up on her couch on his phone. 

_Gilbert._

She takes a moment to absorb the scene in front of her, considering the fact that she wishes she could have this all of the time -- as much as she loves Ruby and Diana, a world where she is with Gilbert and they share an apartment together is a dream far from reach.

She just wishes she could embrace it a little longer--

“Mmm. Anne?”

Gilbert stirs from the couch and squints his eyes open to look at her. 

“Yeah, it’s me. What’re you doing here? Where are Diana and Ruby?”

He sits up, and pats the cushion next to him; an invitation that she gladly accepts. Kicking her heeled boots off, she flops down on the couch and props her feet up on the coffee table. 

“Well, there was a lot of wine getting passed around, and about 20 minutes ago we all dispersed when Ruby dragged Moody back into his bedroom. I think Diana got a text from some of her friends in her French class and went out with them, Josie, Tillie and Jane went back to their place and Charlie made sure they got there safely. Cole went back to his place, and I came down here to rest and wait up for you.”

Exhaling, Anne’s eyes flutter open and shut. A soft smile rests on her face.

“Thank you for waiting for me.”

He grins, wide, and his eyes sparkle -- despite his exhaustion.

“How was your interview?”

“It went well, I think. She really liked my portfolio pieces. She said that I’ll be contacted within the week. How was dinner?”

“That's great! I knew you were going to kill it. There’s no way that this woman wasn’t going to love you.” A red flush hits both of them, and they ignore it. It’s been a long night. “Dinner was fun. But you weren’t there, so it wasn’t the same.” Abruptly, Gilbert jumps from the couch and runs to the kitchen. “I almost forgot!”

Anne, tired but intrigued by Gilbert’s cute little run through the living room, slowly rises from the sofa and follows his path. 

“What’re you doing?”

She walks into the kitchen and sees him shutting the refrigerator, holding a plate of Moody’s macaroni and cheese, Diana’s chicken casserole, and Tillie’s homemade bread rolls. 

“You saved me food.”

“I told you I would.”

“I know, you just-”

She can’t find the words to describe it. There are moments in life like these where you can’t believe the people you have in your life and how lucky you are -- and that is where she finds herself right now. Beyond thankful for Gilbert Blythe.

So, while he gets the meal reheating in the microwave, Anne walks up behind him and slides her arms around his waist. The sweater that he is wearing is soft and warm against her cheek, like a pillow to rest her head against after a stressful day.

“Thank you,” she mumbles. Close to her hands, which are clasped around his front, she feels a light patter on her left arm. It’s beating quite quickly, and it only takes her a moment to understand that it’s Gilbert’s heart.

Under her, he turns around and wraps his arms around her shoulders, encasing her in his warmth. She sighs.

“Anything for you, Anne.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Home To You by Sigrid ;)
> 
> See you in the next chapters!


	3. i'll be here till we collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #15: Slowly accumulating items that are more their style than yours
> 
> WITH A TWIST: It's Ruby who sees it all and is slowly getting so annoyed by their denial that she's about to lose her mind

**_iii. i'll be here till we collide_ **

Ruby Gillis was not noted often as an observational person. She had skated by for most of her life as a "dumb blond," a title that while may be true when pertaining to her book smarts, but is false on the subject of her street smarts. 

Then again, a newborn baby could probably notice everything happening between Anne and Gilbert. So maybe Ruby was a dumb blond.

It started when she caught a decorative piece on a desk in Anne and Diana's room -- a new globe. 

This wouldn't be out of the ordinary, Anne was renowned for collecting items she found at antique shops or small boutiques that were quirky and colorful and spoke to her, but this globe was distractingly off brand. Rather than all of the countries be colored in every shade imaginable and each territory outlined in gold, it was… Bland.

Bland in Anne terms, of course.

Each country was eggshell white with every ocean a pale blue. The globe stand was black. Not metallic or shiny or sparkly, but black. The only Anne-like thing about the old globe was the font in which everything was written. It was bold and curvy and probably circa 1690. 

But really, could the font have been what prompted Anne to buy such a bleak object? It couldn't have been for Diana, because it wasn't much Diana's style either.

In fact, the only person that Ruby could have thought of to buy a globe, of all things, in that color scheme… Was Gilbert. 

_Hmmm._

Upon asking Anne about it, Ruby was the recipient of the following response:

"It just spoke to me. I can't explain it; it was calling out to me."

_Probably because it reminded her of Gilbert._

Ruby doesn't comment on this, even as she watches Anne gaze at the globe with fascination in her eyes. As if the globe’s presence was representative of Gilbert; a portal for Anne to see him whenever she liked.

Now, while this is odd and all, Ruby believes it to be a one-time deal. Anne accidentally buying something more meant for Gilbert than herself; that's what you do when you're in love and in denial over it. 

But the next time she goes over to Moody's apartment that he shares with Gilbert and Charlie, she feels as though she has been thrown into the Twilight Zone. 

"Babe," she starts, standing frozen in front of one of the kitchen cabinets. She was supposed to be getting popcorn so that they could watch a movie, but this is _way_ more important. "Where'd you get this?"

"What, Babe?"

Moody stumbles in and walks up behind his girlfriend, blinking a few times as he puts his arm around the small blond and presses a kiss to the back of her head. She leans back into him, lifting her right hand to point inside of the cupboard.

"That bowl. I haven't seen it before."

Moody hums, following the path of her finger to the brightly colored bowl. It is pretty big, and bright orange red with swirls of yellow, purple, and green. It looks like the kind of bowl that was homemade and could be found at a small pottery store.

It looked like one of Anne's impulse buys.

And it definitely looked out of place among other white, blue and grey dishes. 

"Gilbert brought that home a few days ago. No clue why. I worry about him sometimes."

Ruby relaxes in her boyfriend's arms, eyes focused on the bowl in front of her.

"Interesting."

She feels like she is back in the hallway of her own apartment, attention stolen by Anne's masculine globe. For months, Ruby has been trying to convince Anne of how much Gilbert loves her, and her conviction is only fueled by this little bowl.

They’re practically embedding each other into their lives without even realizing it. So they can have the other person around at all times; even if they aren’t.

This isn't Gilbert's bowl. Well, technically it is, but it belongs to the part of Gilbert that is Anne. The line between them is becoming blurred, and it's only a matter of time before one of them realizes it. 

It’s heartbreakingly sweet, to Ruby. She wishes she could do something -- but nobody would listen to her.

The next week, Anne walks into the living room of the apartment sporting a new, oversized red flannel. Ruby comments on how it looks a little big on Anne; who retorts that it's "supposed to be like that."

If Ruby didn’t know any better, she would have mumbled something snarky about how it looks like Anne stole it from Gilbert, and then watched the redhead squirm over it.

Ruby shakes her head at the ignorance being presented by her wonderfully intelligent friend. Still on the couch when Gilbert comes to walk her to class (a very couple-y thing in itself), she is lucky enough to hear him compliment her roommate's new fashion piece as the door slips shut.

Unfortunately, she misses the glowing smile that Anne flashes in reaction. 

A few days later, as her and Moody walk towards his bedroom, she catches a glimpse of Gilbert's room -- which is now containing a new cactus that is showing off a bright red flower. 

"Does Gilbert have a green thumb all of the sudden?" She inquires. Moody snorts. 

"I don't even bother asking anymore. It's like he's turning into Anne."

She's glad she's not the only one who thinks so. 

Her pain at watching them dance around each other intensifies when she's in Moody's room one day, waiting for him to get out of the shower, and Anne and Gilbert are walking towards his room to study. 

They all smile and wave to each other, and the pair continues to the end of the hall where Gilbert's room is. Distant, she hears Anne gasp:

"Oh, Gilbert, I love this little cactus! When did you get it?"

His answer is muffled by his door slowly closing, to which Ruby pouts. She wants to hear their conversation. 

Carefully, she sneaks off of the bed and tiptoes to Gilbert's bedroom door. 

"I need to get myself one as soon as possible. What inspired you to get it?”

Anne’s voice; passionately declaring her obsession with the succulent. Gilbert’s shy, hand-rubbing-the-back-of-his-neck reaction is clearly visualized by Ruby even though she can’t see it. 

“Nothing, really. I was just walking through the store and saw it, and… Uh, it reminded me of you.” 

Ruby’s stomach explodes and she isn’t even the recipient of his honey-like words. God, how she’d kill to be a fly in the wall in that room. She wants to scream.

“Of-- Of _me_?”

_Here we go_ , Ruby thinks. _Anne’s about to get all self-conscious and probably freak out while comparing the red flower to her hair_ \--

“It was the flower, wasn’t it? It made you think of my horrendous hair.” Ruby rolls her eyes. As much as she loves Anne with every part of her, the poor girl is so insecure and predictable. “I don’t know why you’d want that reminder sitting in your bedroom--”

“Anne,” she hears Gilbert say. She tries to imagine the scene beyond the door -- maybe he’s grabbing Anne’s hands and pulling her towards him, or tucking a strand of her auburn curls behind her ear, or he’s cupping her face and staring deep into her eyes -- the possibilities are endless. “First of all, your hair is beautiful. And second of all, it wasn’t just because of your hair. That may have been a small part of it, but it reminded me of you because of all of the little succulents you have around your apartment, it reminds me of how you can defend yourself and aren’t afraid to fight back, but you’re also beautiful and strong and resilient.”

There’s a pause, which drives Ruby insane… _Holy shit, are they kissing?_

“Why wouldn’t I want a reminder of you in my room?”

Not kissing. Major bummer, but Gilbert’s line is swoon-worthy to anybody. Anne is so damn lucky and doesn’t even realize it.

Before Ruby can listen in on the rest of their conversation, she hears Moody calling her name, which means he’s out of the shower. With a sigh, she presses her hand to Gilbert’s door (almost as if she’s trying to put her hope and love and good energy into the room), stands back up, and walks away.

Two days later, the six of them are out to lunch -- Cole, Diana, Gilbert, Anne, Ruby and Moody. Ruby notices the shirt that Anne is wearing where the sleeves are just a little too long, and she leans over to whisper:

“Another new purchase? I know the oversized style is in, but you gotta slow down before you change your whole closet.”

The faint blush that rises under Anne’s freckles is not lost on Ruby. In fact, it gives her hope.

“Not a new purchase. It’s Gilbert’s.”

_Bingo._

“Gilbert’s?” Ruby wants to be a veterinarian, not an actress. If her attempt at faking confusion is laughable, Anne doesn’t catch it. 

“Yeah. We were studying before this and I accidentally ripped my other shirt on the corner of his old desk that he keeps saying he’s going to sand down but he always forgets to.”

Sounds like a plausible situation, but Ruby prays it’s a lie.

“Aww, bummer. We’ll sew up your other shirt.”

Anne nods, smiling wider, possibly like she is relieved. The shot of excitement and hope that sores through Ruby is hard to repress, but she manages.

At some point during lunch, Anne takes out the braids in her hair and Ruby doesn’t catch where her hair tie goes. They eat, and laugh, and then Moody and Diana have to run to class so they begin to disperse -- and as Anne and Gilbert walk off together, Ruby catches a glance at Gilbert’s wrist, which seems to have two brown bands around it that weren’t there 30 minutes ago. 

“The anticipation is killing me,” she hears behind her. It’s Cole, who is just off of her right shoulder, watching after the redhead and the brunette with a longing gaze. Ruby smiles up at him, which he returns. 

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Force of Nature by Bea Miller! Thank you all for reading and I love you


	4. until you come home to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert contemplating a habit of Anne's that he has noticed recently.
> 
> Prompt #22: "I'll wait for you."

**_iv. until you come home to me_ **

Gilbert, while he often is laser-focused on Anne, didn’t notice what was happening at first. Which was jarring to him, to say the least. 

It began with something so small that he almost couldn’t have noticed, but again, why didn’t he? He spends day and night waiting for a sign from Anne that she’s ready, ready for him to love her, and ready to love him in return. So how did he not read between the lines here?

Her 1:15 PM International Fiction class would typically end at 2:40. because her professor would always let them leave a little early . His 1 PM Organic Chemistry class would typically get out at 2:45, because his professor enjoyed going through the lecture a little too thoroughly.

And every Monday and Thursday, when they had class, he would find her waiting outside of the lecture hall as he filed out of the room with his fellow students.

_ How did he not think anything of it? _

He never did it for her, ever; they never had any other classes at the same time and on the same days. She just started doing it one day. And she never stopped. 

On some days, she’ll bring him something. It might be a coffee, or a cookie that her and Ruby made, or the other half of her sandwich that she had been eating while waiting for him.

But every Monday and Thursday after Organic Chem was Gilbert’s one-way ticket to seeing Anne without fail. And it was the highlight of his day. 

_ And yet he didn’t even think of it as a sign that she might reciprocate his feelings. _

Not when she beamed at him after class, a pink blush darkening under her freckles; not when she would sometimes throw her arms around his neck and say that she was happy to see him after having a bad day. 

Gilbert has been spending so much time in Denialtown that he has refused to consider the idea that she had a purpose behind it this entire time. 

_ Did she even realize that she had a purpose behind it? _

One day, Moody corners him about it:

“Do you like, pick Anne up from class or anything? Ruby told me that she sees you guys together when she leaves Bio. She told me that y’all aren’t even dating and you walk home from class together, so I should probably… Get on that, huh?” 

Gilbert pauses briefly, stunned by the assumption. 

“No, um… Her class gets out before mine, so she, uh… She waits for me to get out, in the hall.”

“ _ Anne _ picks you up?” The sandwich in Moody’s hand is coming dangerously close to falling apart. Gilbert eyes it closely while answering. 

“I mean… Yeah. I guess.”

“Like, every time you guys have these classes?”

The realization slaps Gilbert across the face as he admits it out loud for the first time.

“Yeah. Every time.”

Amusingly frustrated, Moody runs his hands over his face and groans. He whips his phone out from his pocket and starts typing. 

“Jesus. Ruby’s right when she said you two are clueless.”

Too much in shock, any response gets tied up in Gilbert’s throat like a knot. He sits, gawking at Moody, for too long. 

While Anne continues to wait for him after class on Mondays and Thursdays, Gilbert starts to pick up the other times she waits for him, too. They go out to coffee as a group one afternoon and as everyone begins clearing out, Gilbert excuses himself to the bathroom. Anne is still at the table, the only person left, when he comes back. They leave together. When the group plans a trip to the coast, Gilbert forgets his asthma medication and has to sprint back up to his apartment on the fifth floor, even though everyone had already congregated in the lobby. When he returns, Anne is sitting on her suitcase, scrolling through her phone, while everyone else is in the car. They get squished together next to Charlie in the back, but neither of them seem to mind. 

Anne is always there -- always waiting. 

Even on the day that he had his annual cancer screening, checking for signs of the same condition that his father died from, Anne walks him to the hospital and has made herself comfortable in the waiting room by the time he’s done. She greets him, wordlessly, with a tight hug and an ice cream bar that she got from a hospital vending machine.

He almost grabs her face and crushes her mouth with his right then and there. 

_ (He doesn’t. He should have.) _

Instead, he buys her flowers the next day. A bouquet of her favorites: Sunflowers, roses, peonies, and honeysuckle. When he gives it to her, she absolutely lights up -- and the next time he’s at her apartment, he sees them sprinkled around the house; in the kitchen, in the bathrooms, in the bedrooms. 

“Why do you always wait for me?”

He asks her one day, when they are walking home from class. He doesn’t specify the situations in which she waits for him, but there is a hint at a double meaning there that he hopes she picks up. 

Ironic, considering the fact that he’s always thought of himself as the patient one between the two of them. 

“I don’t know… I just felt like it's the considerate, friendly thing to do, you know?”

Gilbert is tempted to retch at her use of the word “friendly.” It’s a close call -- but he manages.

“Do you want me to stop? I didn’t even think about the fact that you might feel like I’m invading your space or your time--”

“No!” The way that he exclaims it makes him sound as desperate as he feels most of the time. “Sorry. I mean, no, you’re right, it is considerate. And I  _ love _ it.”

Anne, as Gilbert observes, tenses up when he says “love.” He is torn between taking it as a positive sign, or a negative one. Too quickly, she composes herself, and continues the conversation. 

“Well, I’m glad. I loved it when you waited for me after my job interview, so I just wanted to return the favor one day, and I guess it just stuck.” 

And thus, Gilbert discovered the origin of Anne’s actions. It was pleasing to hear that he was the one that spurred them on.

Does that mean if he kisses her, she would kiss back? Like, hypothetically, if she’s on this whole “return the favor” kick? He should test this hypothesis. For scientific reasons.

_ Again, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know if he ever will. _

He’s had about enough of Anne waiting for him on a very, truly exhausting night. He has been on rotation at the hospital for the last 13 hours, and was going to go out to eat with Anne that night -- but was just informed that his presence at the hospital was requested for another four hours. 

Dinner was supposed to be at 7 PM -- it was 4:42 PM when he got this information. He would be over an hour late to dinner, and he didn’t even have his phone to text Anne. At a weak moment of panic, Gilbert even tried to attempt using the hospital phone to call her; but he barely got a word out when she picked up before a nurse arrived to scold him. 

As he is leaving the hospital, he is looking up whether or not the flower shop is still open -- so that he can pick up an apology bouquet, of course -- when a moving mass of red catches his eye.

Anne is there, standing up from her position on a bench outside of the hospital. Her hair is down, a true rarity; and the wind is blowing it around her head. In her hands is a takeout bag that Gilbert recognizes is from the cafe that they were going to eat at. 

The sun has just started to set, and the golden hour has decided to perfectly hit Anne’s hair so that it burns as bright as fire. And at the same time, the sun illuminates her icy eyes, and the blue radiates in contrast to the red. 

Seeing her there, smiling, makes Gilbert freeze. His guilt for standing her up is crushing, but it’s the waiting that overrides anything else -- she’s here, in front of the hospital, ready with the dinner that they were supposed to eat two hours ago.

He should ask her how she knew he was pushed on a late shift.

He should apologize profusely and then thank her even more.

He decides to postpone those things for later, and the exhaustion of working for so long crushes his resolve; so he tucks his phone in his pocket, rushes over to her, and tangles his fingers in her wild hair as he pulls her towards him in a kiss. 

It isn’t innocent, or sweet -- he’s tired and in love with her and wants her to feel it. It’s reckless and rushed and as fiery as her hair; but judging by the way that she is kissing him back, he thinks that she’ll forgive him for that. 

His hypothesis has been proven to be correct. 

The next day is a Thursday. And, by some miracle of God, Gilbert’s professor excuses them exactly on time -- at 2:30 PM. Which means Anne’s class isn’t over yet.

So, he can go and wait for her. 

At 2:41, she is a part of the flurry of students leaving the room, and when she sees him the message is clear:

She doesn’t have to wait for him anymore. He’s right there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter from the song For Now by Lauv! I LOVE YOU AND IM SORRY IF YOU ARE HAVING A BAD DAY EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY


End file.
